Notes of Ghoul School
=List of Frame Amounts= * Screen Transitions ** Room-to-Room: 22 Frames ** Into Menu: 3 Frames ** Out of Menu: 22 Frames * Zipping ** Short Term: ** Long Term: 6:1 - 6 Zipping Frames, 1 Rest Frame (7 total per part). * Title Screen ** Copyright Screen: 188 Frames Changing Items/Weapons There are two columns in the item select screen. The left is for weapons, and the right is for shoes. When you leave the item selection screen, the cursor will stay on the side you chose for it (I.E. unpause with the cursor on the right side and it will stay on the outside.) If the need to change shoes arises, then you only need to remain on the item select screen for two frames. * 3 Frames - Go into menu. ** On the third frame, hold "Up" or "Down", then frame advance one frame. ** On this frame, hold the "Start" button and advance one frame. =Tricks and Glitches= Copy-pasted from the Tool-Assisted Speedrun submission text Invincibility One of the more commonly known glitches about this game. If you go into any locker you can enter with the Spring Shoes on, then take them off, the locker will partially open and Spike will be able to roam freely and intangibly. In most cases, Spike will be stuck in the background, but if you pause at the first possible frame and do the trick, Spike will be fully visible. You can null the glitch by dying or exiting any locker by pressing Up inside of it. Double Hit The bat and the towel both have a unique property; they can hit twice. The first hit is from behind Spike, and the second hit is in front. However, you have to turn around to make both hits connect properly. The first hit with the bat can only hit if the enemy is either taller than you or is a bit above you. The towel acts just like Simon Belmont's whip, only you can turn around to land a second hit. Kills with the bat were done in WIPs, but not in the final version as evading an enemy (if possible) is much faster. Zipping This is vital to the run. Once you get the Spring Shoes, go up to any wall in the game with just your sneakers on. Go into the pause menu and put the Spring Shoes on. Immediately after unpausing, hold the opposite direction that the wall is in (i.e. if the wall is on the right, hold left on the D-Pad.) Depending on the frame of animation, you will perform one of two zips: * Soft Zip: You go into the wall only one block, and are able to walk back out in the opposite direction like normal. Spike can also climb up walls if Spike is only wearing his sneakers. This is only used once in the run, in the Air Ducts. * Hard Zip: You are able to zip through a number of blocks. Spike can only zip about seven or eight blocks until he gets stuck for about four frames. This is undesirable in a TAS. For shorter bursts, this isn't a big problem and spike can go for about seven or eight blocks without needing to stop. Longer zips, such as ones in the Crawl Space, need to follow a 6-1 pattern; Six frames of zipping, one of resting. This produces the best results for long-term zipping. Additionally, there is a Ceiling Zip glitch that was found to not be as useful as previously thought, so it was not used. Efforts to zip through the floor have yet to be successful. Warp Zone There is a test room in the game which the game labels as the "Warp Zone". There are two ways of entry. The first involves the elevator, getting the arrow to be between floors 1 and 2, then exiting. The second is to exit most rooms by performing a hard zip through them. The latter is used twice, once to get near the hallway that ends at the Music Room/Chemistry Lab to get the Embalming Fluid, and once to get right under the door to the Crawl Space. This map (made by myself for a couple reasons) highlights where all the exits lead can be seen here. The lower-left and center areas were used in this run. Enemy Damage Boost One of the irritating things in this run that some enemies cannot be jumped over or run under. This is highly prevalent in the first third of the run. However, the knockback can be controlled somewhat. Being hit by an enemy sends you moving faster for a distance in a jumping fashion, so for the early part of the run, this is desirable. * Walking-Only Enemies must have a very well-timed jump while moving in your direction in order to boost off of. Walking-only eyeballs can be jumped over by decelerating without jumping for a couple frames, then running forward and jumping to get over them. This offers a large boost. * Jumping-Only Enemies, which mainly consist of the Jumping Eyeball, jump every set number of frames. It is not possible to manipulate an enemy into jumping sooner or later. I have found that slowing down for about fifteen frames (possibly with a decelerated jump) times it just right to run underneath. Jumping at the right frame will increase the push distance. * Walking and Jumping Enemies, consisting of the Walking-Jumping Eyeball, can have either method be used, but in most cases, abiding by a variant of the Jumping-Only Enemy strategy is the best bet for boosting. The Walking-Jumping Eyeball likes to park itself in inconvenient locations, but with frame precision (or an extraordinary amount of luck), they can be avoided in these situations too. If they jump and you run other them, jumping at the right time can yield better results than a Jumping Eyeball. Some enemies are great for boosting, but others are not because of the amount of life that they themselves inflect, such as direct contact with a Weight-Lifting Eyeball in the Weight Room (which per hit, takes off six bars of health). It is possible sometimes to boost off their weights, but sometimes it is not possible as well. Stairs Stairs have very bizarre properties. If you have to climb them for any reason, then each step up or down takes about 12 frames. However, if jumped on, there is a one frame window to perform any normal action. There are also two types of stairs. Brick stairs must be climbed, but wooden stairs can be skipped if desired. Jumping is the best method unless a specific trick needs to be done in order to get to where you need to go. The stairs can also "catch" you if they are of the brick variety and get you stuck. You can jump upwards, but not forwards or backwards. This result is undesirable in a TAS. Room Exits In any room, there are three possibilities for an exit; Upper, Middle, and Lower. You do not have to climb the stairs in order to access the rooms, simply jumping high enough or falling into the right area will suffice. There is a notable exception however, which will be discussed in the Room-By-Room Breakdown section below. Lock Picking In a few areas, a door is "locked" unless you defeat a certain enemy. However, pressing more than one direction at the same time will negate this lock and allow you to pass through it anyway. This is used once to skip Admiral Aorta right before the final boss. Spring Shoes Jumping For some odd reason, if you hit your head on the ceiling while jumping with the Spring Shoes, you are able to move a couple extra pixels forward per jump. This is used constantly throughout 2/3 of the run, only breaking whenever it would either be slower (such as getting to a door to open it at the first possible frame) or would put me in a place that would set me up to suboptimal locations. Generally, if it looks like I slow down oddly, it's for a very good reason and has been at least double-checked to make sure it is indeed faster.